Four Things
by Ein Kampf kann eine Lebenszeit
Summary: Alice isolates herself during Bella's pregnancy in Breaking Dawn. During that isolation, she remembers the better times, and some things she wished she never did. Please read and review, much appreciated. One shot.


Four things I had lived without my entire existence. Headaches, loneliness, fear, and blindness. I had never been alone, because Jasper had always been with me, from the very first moment I opened my eyes. I had never been afraid of anything because Jasper was always there to make everything better, make sure I didn't have anything to fear. I had never been blind, I had always been able to see everything before it happened. I had never had headaches because it was, supposedly, impossible for vampires to have headaches.

Now I had a headache, I was alone, I was afraid, and I was blind. I was blind because of whatever was in Bella at the moment. I was afraid because I was blind and Jasper had pain coming off him in waves that told me he had no idea as to what was going on. I was alone because Jasper needed to be with the family for the two of us. And I had a headache because I couldn't see anything, and I kept trying. Jasper tried to soothe the pain, but it hadn't worked.

And so I sat in my room. On the edge of the bed, my hands linked together and my arms leading down between my legs. My legs were squeezing my arms in an attempt to will the headache away. It didn't work. But I now knew that the carpet on my side of the bed had over twenty thousand strands.

The worst part about this whole situation was knowing it wasn't a dream. Bella could have been dreaming it, but we all knew how happy she truly was, and how she would die to have this thing come out of her safely. Rosalie must have been proud. But I knew it wasn't a dream. I knew Bella had a very high chance of dying. I knew that she had an extremely small chance of surviving. I knew the chances of everything, and I had used to know the concrete facts. Now I didn't know if Bella would live or die. I didn't know if Bella would have a bat like baby or a human baby.

The wolves, Jacob, Seth, and Leah, helped a considerable amount. When Jacob was in the living room, I would sit on the stairs. Bella only seemed to sleep anymore. She didn't know. I would talk to Jacob sometimes. He was laid back, but I could tell he was worried about her. I couldn't see anything about him. Everything was black, but this blackness offered more peace than the offending flashes of obvious love for something that was killing my sister. He eased the headaches.

I had also never lived without Jasper. And now I barely saw him. I talked to Jacob more than I did to him. It seemed as if Jacob was becoming my temporary support through this entire … thing. I had seen Edward and Bella get off the plane. I even saw Bella go to Rosalie first, and not me.

That broke a part of my heart. Bella had always come to me first. I was always the only one to ever get physical contact from her. I had been expecting this when she got off the plane. But as I watched Bella and Rosalie embrace, and Bella say something to Rosalie, my vision, my sense of security, everything just vanished. I could no longer see my car in the parking lot. I could no longer see Jasper's control in the air port. The only thing I _could_ see was Edward's pained expression as he watched his wife and younger sister holding onto each other for life.

I remember horror showing on my face.

I remember walking to my car, Jasper behind me two steps and Carlisle behind him five steps.

I remember collapsing in the middle of the road in the parking lot.

I remember sobbing into Jasper's chest.

I remember his hand running circles on my back.

I remember starting to feel resentment towards not only Rosalie, but also Bella.

I remember cursing Edward.

I remember swearing off my entire family except my husband.

I remember locking my door for the first time.

I remember screaming at the people coming in, telling them to somehow warn me they were coming.

I remember the look on my mother's face as I told her what she was doing was wrong.

I remember the look on my younger brother's face as I told him to stop trying to make the situation better.

I remember looking my father directly in the eyes and telling him I couldn't stand to be around Bella.

I remember telling my sister she was a selfish brat who didn't deserve the love she received.

I remember telling my brother of the same age I was sorry.

I remember telling my husband I needed time alone.

I remember looking at Bella for the first time since she walked in our door with disgust, then turning my back and walking away.

But what I remember the most of everything is that every hour I promised myself I would apologize to every one of them, but I never brought myself to do it. I would question why I even needed to apologize in the first place.

I knew I was selfish. I wanted to get rid of whatever it was that was killing her so that I could go back to my existence without headaches, and fear, and loneliness, and blindness. I wanted to be able to see again. I wanted to not have to isolate myself because of my actions. I wanted to not be afraid that the people I love were suffering, and I could do nothing to help any of them, I at least wanted to let them know everything would be alright, but I couldn't even do that. And I wanted the headaches to be gone. Living for so long without pain of any kind had made me spoiled. This I realized.

I knew it was wrong of me to want all these things. None of them benefited anyone else. They all only benefited me. I couldn't even think of a positive thing for Jasper. Yes, he would have his Alice back, but that was all. He would have the memories of me not looking at him while I told him I needed space and time alone. He would remember everything, and I wished that had never happened.

I was pulled from my thoughts by the bell ringing downstairs. That had been my younger brother's idea as to let me know someone was coming to see me. After everyone had rung the bell, I knew which ring belonged to whom. This time it was Jasper. I heard his footsteps on each stair. They were slow, he must have been thinking about what he was going to say exactly.

He slowly opened the door. My hands and arms were still between my legs. I didn't take my eyes off the carpet to look at him. I felt guilty enough as it was.

"Bella wants to see you," he said softly. She had wanted to see me for the past three and a half days. I still loved her, yes. I still wanted the best for her, yes. But right now I didn't want to see her. She and that thing were the cause of my pain, blindness, loneliness, and fear, and I didn't want to be anywhere near her.

"Tell her I'm busy," I said. I could hear my voice was emotionlessly flat. It had never been this way. I usually had happiness or cheer or some kind of emotion lacing every word. Now they were flat and monotonous. I had grown used to it with the few words I spoke to myself. I doubt anyone else had grown used to it though.

"Alice, you've been busy for three days. She knows you're avoiding her. She just wants to say hi," he said. I shook my head. I meant to say I wasn't avoiding her, but the shake of my head was slow. I meant to convince him that I wasn't avoiding her, but I could hardly convince myself that I wasn't avoiding her. I looked at him. I took a deep breath before speaking.

"Tell her I'll been down later," I said slowly and surely. He didn't seem to completely buy that, but nodded his head.

"Jasper?" I asked timidly. He stopped before exiting the room. The door was open, but he was still there. "Is this what it's like, to not know what's coming?" I continued. He turned back to face me.

"I wouldn't know," he said. He closed the door as he walked out. I fell back on the couch, staring at the ceiling of my room. My hands rested on my stomach. I knew what he meant by his words. As long as I had had my visions, Jasper knew what was coming. Therefore, this was as new to him, not knowing what was going to happen, as it was to me.

Two days ago I had counted all the dots on my ceiling, trying to ignore my headache.

It hadn't worked.

I stared at the ceiling remembering better times. Specifically the times when Edward had just started talking to Bella. He was so happy then. He used to only ever play his piano at night and work slowly on his homework. The first night he went to Bella's house, I knew she wouldn't know about it. He had a serious look on his face. At the time he had only spoken to me about how he couldn't read her mind. I watched what he did the entire night. I saw him gently ease the window open, wincing as it made noises. I saw another plan that involved him buying oil to get rid of the noise.

My favorite part was when he sat down to watch her, and as soon as he was about to leave she said his name. We didn't see him at home during the night for weeks after that.

I also remembered getting to meet Bella for the first time.

"_Jasper, come on, they're almost here. Well, they are here, but hurry up," I said. Perhaps I was a bit too excited about this whole thing, but I was finally getting to meet Bella… Formally._

"_Alice, please contain your excitement," he said evenly. I looked at him and dropped my smile._

"_You're the only one who can tell," I said. He smiled and put his arms around my shoulders quickly, then let me go._

"_Where are Alice and Jasper?" I heard Edward ask Esme and Carlisle downstairs. I smiled again and took Jasper's hand. I went with him to the head of the stairs. I couldn't not say anything._

"_Hey, Edward!" I said. I knew I probably looked like a five year old at Christmas, but that's how I felt. I let go of Jasper's hand and ran down to Bella. I stopped in front of her._

"_Hi, Bella!" I said happily, and kissed her on the cheek. I could feel Carlisle and Esme staring at me, but I knew what I was doing. Edward didn't move._

"_You do smell nice, I never noticed before," I said. I had just then smelt the air around her and I could immediately see why Edward needed to leave for a few days. I wondered what it was doing to Jasper._

_I felt Jasper walking down the stairs and I took a few steps back. I could feel him working, and figured it was just for Bella's sake. _

"_Hello, Bella," he said. His hands were behind his back and I could tell he wasn't breathing._

I missed those days of being able to be myself while everyone else was timid and shy around Bella. I missed playing baseball with my family, something that happened once a week, thanks to the fantastic weather of Forks. Now three thunderstorms had passed. I didn't know they were coming, but when they did arrive, no one except Emmett (and that was only one occasion) wanted to play. I wanted to play to see if that somehow eased the pain.

As mentioned earlier, the only one to have eased any of the pain and loneliness, the only one who fully shared my opinion of getting rid of the hell spawn currently residing in Bella, was Jacob. I heard him walking up the stairs outside, then opening the door. He sat in the living room. I decided now was as good a time as any.

It was more painful than expected. Looking at Bella, seeing how frail she was, seeing how close to death she was, it made me feel even more pain. More pain because I knew that no matter what happened, there was no way in hell she could pull through this. Her skin was translucent, and it was pulled tightly across every bone in her body. For a human, it wasn't natural. The entire situation wasn't natural. None of this should have happened, and it could have been my fault.

I was supposed to be the one who told everyone what was going to happen. How had this, of all things, the one thing that was going to kill Bella, have slipped through? Though it didn't technically slip through. I had seen the entire honeymoon up until the part where Bella called Carlisle. From then on everything was flashes. Blinding flashes of nothing. One minute it would be blue, the next red. I would only see flashes, and those hurt more than anything.

Then Edward and Jasper and Carlisle had told me none of this was my fault. I couldn't have stopped any of it. It was apparently meant to happen, and happening it was. So why, after however long it had been, why was I still blaming myself? Maybe because I knew something was going to happen, but I was hoping it was only the breaking of Esme's bed that would happen. Carlisle had told us that humans couldn't be impregnated by vampires to his knowledge, and I suppose his knowledge had just expanded.

When one thought of it that way, it could have been Carlisle's fault as well. Hadn't he ever taught a lesson at school on safe sex practices? Perhaps Edward thought nothing of the sort would happen, but happened it had.

And now we had to pay the consequence.

Watching a loved one die slowly.

That's where everything came from. That's where my headaches came from. That's where my loneliness came from. That's where my fear came from. And that's where my blindness came from.

I was watching Bella die. I heard her heartbeat weaken every second. It hurt, not being able to know how to help. I isolated myself, made myself lonely, because I knew people would only talk about her condition. I was scared because I had seen many humans die, but none had I ever loved so much. None had I loved at all. I couldn't see anything, making me blind, because I couldn't, and I didn't want to see what would come of this entire mess. The truth of the whole thing was I loved Bella dearly.

And I didn't want to see her die.

**LONG! ish. I dunno. I'm tired. And honestly, I've been workin' on that for two days. It looked like crap the other day, so now it looks purdy. Let me know what ya'll think. Thanks. :D **


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